Hospital cover can be used in your tax return to avoid paying the Medicare Levy Surcharge. We explain all you need to know on this page.
To make tax time easier, health funds send all your health insurance information for tax purposes to the ATO for you. If you do your tax online or through an accountant, your information will be ready for you there.
We send your tax statements to the ATO for the financial year by the third week of July, so you can start on your tax return then.
Your hospital cover information automatically populates on your tax return, so you don’t need to do a thing
Your tax guide for private health insurance
Tax statements will be in your
Online Member Services secure inboxand are delivered to the ATO by the third week of July.
This statement shows the total amount you’ve paid for health insurance this financial year (along with any Australian Government Rebate that you’ve received as a reduced premium).
You’ll receive one for each main adult on your membership. Any adult dependants on your membership can use your statement for their tax return.
Here’s how to read your tax statement on your Peoplecare tax statement.
What does it all mean?
- Health Insurer ID: A code used to identify each private health fund. Peoplecare’s Health Insurer ID is LHM.
- Benefit code: This code is for the rebate. It identifies the age bracket people fall into.
- Your premiums eligible for the Australian Government Rebate: This is how much per person is eligible for the Rebate. The ATO takes your hospital and extras cover rates to get this number.
- Number of days this policy provides an appropriate level of private patient hospital cover: This is how many days of the year you are exempt from the Medicare levy. If your statement reads 365 (or 366 in a leap year), then you don’t have to pay the Medicare levy.
The Australian financial year ends on 30 June and starts on 1 July.
From Peoplecare’s tax statement:
- Health insurer ID
- Membership number
- Your premiums eligible for Australian Government rebate
- Your Australian Government rebate received
- Benefit code
From the ATO:
- Tax claim code. It’s not on any tax statement. It should pre-populate on your tax return.
to find your two most recent statements. Any further back than that and you’ll have to call us and one of our Peoplecarers will email the statements to you.
The rebate is a government contribution towards your private hospital & extras cover, whereas the Medicare levy is a tax for people who earn over a certain income who don’t have hospital cover.
If you’ve pre-paid your cover to lock in the previous year’s rates, your contributions might appear to be $0, but that doesn’t mean you need to pay the Medicare Levy Surcharge. The key figure you’re looking at is:
Number of days this policy provides an appropriate level of private patient hospital cover
If the number matches the number of days in the year, 365 for a normal year and 366 in a leap year, then you won’t have to pay the Medicare Levy Surcharge.
For most of our members who choose to claim the rebate as they go, it’s done automatically. Your statement will tell you the dollar amount of personal rebate you received.
Otherwise, you can claim it at tax time.
You’ll see in Your Annual Cover Summary if you have a Lifetime Health Cover loading and all the details of that. Once again, this will be in the
Online Member Services secure inbox.No, the levy will be calculated only on the days you missed.
